Connie On Yu Hui

Monash University

Interview for WIMSIG News. (PDF)

1. When did you first become interested in mathematics?

Perhaps the third year of the Bachelor’s program.

When I was in my third undergraduate year, I took a Level 1 mathematics logic class as a chemistry student and was amazed by how intuitively unclear statements could be deduced from some seemingly true statements using rigorous proofs. It was like some magic performed in front of me and I have to believe it.   

2. Could you tell us about your life and career path so far? 

I grew up in Hong Kong and entered a local university as a pharmacy student. I transferred my major to chemistry after one year. Physical chemistry was scary to me at that time because there was quite an amount of mathematics and physics involved and I was not good at those, so I started taking some extra mathematics classes during summers and semesters.

Having felt a third eye open after taking the mathematics logic class, I extended for two years to do a double major in mathematics and chemistry. I could not extend further due to administrative and financial reasons, so I took an extra gap year afterwards to audit more advanced mathematics classes. There was no local student funding assistance during those three years, so I mainly worked as a private tutor to help pay my tuition fees and living expenses. Despite the struggles in life, I was glad to be in mathematics. I was amazed by the epsilon-delta language that described limits and calculus, and I often like trying to rewrite proofs and draw some connection maps between theorems after lectures. It feels good to have doubts cleared in this way. Sometimes it might be helpful in guessing how people come up with the proofs.

My first research experience probably happened during the undergraduate final year maths project, I was quite excited to have solved an open problem related to the 4x4x4 Rubik’s cube under the guidance of my project advisor at that time, this further consolidated my decision to continue on pure mathematics. I was later admitted to a master’s program in Hong Kong, learning more about smooth manifolds and Riemannian geometry. Now I am in a PhD program at Monash University with great supervisors, colleagues and academic siblings. I go to conferences, discuss mathematics with people, write papers, and teach.

3. What does your current research involve?

My current research interests lie primarily in the fields of low-dimensional topology and hyperbolic geometry. In particular, I have been learning hyperbolic knot theory and working on knots and links in Seifert-fibred spaces such as the 3-torus and the unit tangent bundle of the modular surface.

The topics that I have worked on with papers published or submitted include hyperbolicity and volume estimates of geodesic link complements in the 3-torus, those of the link complements in the unit tangent bundle of the modular surface, and the applications of surface-crushing techniques on triangulation complexities of 3-dimensional submanifolds.

4. How do you achieve a balance between your work and life?

Embrace part of the work as part of my life.

5. What do you think are mathematician’s duties and responsibilities towards the society? 

I believe different mathematicians may have different duties and responsibilities towards the society based on their research areas and personal growth experiences. For myself, who used to be one of the very few female students or teaching assistants in the whole mathematics department in the past, I understand how important gender balance is for female students and I believe gender equity is also important for trans and gender diverse people. Thanks to the various opportunities in Australia, I became part of the different teams that promote gender equity. I wish to continue promoting gender equity in mathematics via various ways in the future.

6. How has your experience doing mathematics in Australia been so far? 

Meeting my current main supervisor Jessica Purcell is one of the luckiest things that has happened in my life. I used to be a very quiet and shy student who rarely interacted with people during classes, the only other female classmate I met that I found easier to chat with graduated soon after the first semester we met. I never thought I could discuss mathematics weekly and regularly with people before coming to Melbourne. With my supervisor’s encouragement, support, and efforts in organising seminars and conferences (together with her colleagues), I was able to attend many conferences and meet researchers from around the world. I was able to expand my collaboration network, present my work, and discuss mathematics with different people. Thanks also to her, I have a wonderful group of academic siblings whom I could discuss maths with.

Other than collaboration opportunities, there have been many funding supports or opportunities from the School of Mathematics in Monash University, my supervisor, WIMSIG, AustMS, and AMSI. All these funding support my attendance to conferences and summer/winter schools. Besides, when I first started my PhD in Melbourne, I was soothed and moved to see various groups and events that promote gender equity in mathematics in Australia, both school-wise and country-wise.

7. Where do you see yourself 10 years from now?

I want to continue my path in mathematics and I am preparing myself for opportunities that allow myself to stay in academia. I hope I could have more intuition on solving some open problems in the future, and I wish I would be able to support more people who also want to continue their paths in mathematics. 

8. What advice would you offer to young women who are just starting their careers in the mathematical sciences?

If you are too shy to speak, try to get more courage.

If you doubt whether you understand the questions or comments, don’t be afraid to ask.

If you think your questions might be stupid, embrace embarrassment and try improving the questions through discussion.

If you think you are slow and not as smart as others, try to be a little faster, but let yourself be slow sometimes to think thoroughly.

If you have passion for mathematics, keep it.

9. Any last words?

GRIT.